Tuesday, March 20, 2007

When does it get easier?

You all know that I absolutely adore my son.

But.

There are times when I want to kill him. Or at least hurt him.

This semester he's been doing so much better with the studying, and I'm so proud of him. But he just doesn't seem to understand that it's a long-term thing. Not just a matter of getting through this test or that paper. It's a commitment.

The thing is, he loves loves loves to socialize. Loves. It. He's like the Julie McCoy of CW Post. And it makes me happy that he has so many friends and people like him. Cool.

When he first went to school, his girlfriend at the time was at school in another state. And it was good. Then, he broke up with her and started dating someone at school, but who didn't live on campus. Not as good. Too close, too much of a distraction.

Now? He's met someone who lives in the dorm next to his. Bad. Very, very bad.

Clearly, I should have considered an all-boys college. (Do those even exist outside of military institutions? And I think most -- if not all -- of those also have women now.)

I just wish I could figure out how to stress to him how important this is. He's been given such a gift to be able to go to this school, and has so many opportunities. I hate the idea of him blowing it because of girls.

I'm really beginning to believe what they say about 18, 19-year olds being too young to appreciate college.

And so of course, I can't help but feel like it's my fault. If I'd instilled the discipline to study and prioritize in him earlier in life.... But then I recognize that I did the best I could with him, and overall, he's a great kid.

It's just that damn studying.... !!

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Oh I so relate to this. Neil has major exams in less than a month and is he studying? Is he heck! Sometimes I feel as if I'm in nagging overdrive and still getting nowhere.

MyThreeBlogs said...

Ok, so I'm reading your post & realizing that it's kinda like the one I wrote about Max... just 10 or so years later. It doesn't change - that feeling of not doing/giving enough....

Although the stakes are a bit higher now in college than in first grade!

What if you crank called the girl?

Anonymous said...

I just wanted to add, thanks for writing this because it makes me feel better - today I could have happily strangled Neil. Knowing that other people's teenage sons make them feel the same way is very reassuring.

Tracy said...

Oh, Lisa .... I will ALWAYS be able to relate to strangling teenage sons (except mine only has about 8 more months of being a teenage! YIKES!) - feel free to get in touch with me any time you need to vent/be emotionally restrained/etc.!